Falling down at The Grove and coming home with Portia de Rossi's autograph!

First, contrary to popular belief, I did not fall on Portia de Rossi, knock her over and have Ellen DeGeneres's people beat me up. No matter how many times that has been suggested.

It happened like this. It was a sunny day, so Ella and I planned on hiking up to the Hollywood Sign. I was very excited until I found out that there was a HUGE fence around it. I had already seen it from Griffith Park, so we decided to go to the walk of the stars thing and then hit the Grove.

The Grove is a mall, but it's not really in a building. It's got a Farmer's market, stores, apartments and restaurants. It's this little area with roads and side walks (footpaths) and stuff, but no actual cars are allowed. It does have a tram (trolley) in there though. So while I was crossing the road, I tripped and flailed for about ten freaking seconds yelling "I'm falling, I'm falling" repeatedly till I fell and said, "Oh, I fell." Luckily, because I was flailing, I was also leaning forward and running (trying to gain balance), my fall was not from the epic five feet, ten inches it usually is, but a mere two feet high. So I ended up bruising my knee a bit and scraping my hand. But in case no one had noticed, a scraped hand hurts like hell!!!

So, to make me feel better, Ella and I decided to go shopping. We went to Barnes and Nobles where I really wanted to get Portia de Rossi's book "Unbearable Lightness". I went to the back to ask a store clerk where I could find a copy because the store there is three stories tall and I had never been there before and I had no intention of walking up and down trying to figure out how the store was structured. I was still in pain and by then, my knee was telling me that I had hurt it also (the scraped hand was burning, so I didn't really realise I had hit my knee).

The clerk told me that someone had just returned a copy and asked it I would be interested in it. I really didn't care as long as the all the pages were there and it wasn't in a bad condition. So he led me back to the sales desk and gave me the book. I opened it to check if everything was there and it was a freaking SIGNED copy!!!!! Some doofus called "Susie Lee" had returned a personalised signed copy!!!! Of course I took it! My name is not Susie Lee, but really, what are the chances that me, a girl from India, will go into Barnes and Nobles in LA and get a signed copy of Portia's book?



I went to get it billed and actually asked for a discount because it was a returned copy and they gave me one!!! So I basically got a discounted, autographed book! I think it balanced out the falling in the Grove, in front of a LOT of people thing.

That day was a very good day in my book. Now all I have to do is actually meet Portia and get it readdressed. Anyone know someone who knows someone who knows her? Or anyone know her?

The Hollywood life!

So, I am in LA. Reached here in one piece, even though my plane got struck by lightening while landing after a seventeen hour flight. No biggie. Whaaaa???? YES biggie!!!! It was insane! After seventeen hours of flying non stop, all we wanted to do was get that plane to land and feel the ground beneath us! I was concentrating on not having to use the barf bag because I was feeling pretty ill. Suddenly, there is a loud bang, the lights flicker, the plane shakes and you look outside the window to see sparks!!! You're like what the hell?? And then the air-hostess makes an announcement saying that we were hit by lightening but there was nothing to worry about. It happens apparently. Let me tell you, I freaking worried!!! It doesn't HAPPEN!


Anyway, I went out of the airport, bags in tow and was welcomed to LA with ice cold air, some rain and the biggest rainbow I had ever seen!!! It was MASSIVE! And so beautiful! I could only manage to take a really bad picture of it though. I pretty much passed out at Ella's place out of sheer exhaustion.

Thursday was nice. We explored Studio City, which is the next locality of where she lives and I ate Greek food for the first time. Then it got dark, cold and started raining, so we decided to come back and plan the rest of my stay here. We managed to get tickets to see Jimmy Kimmel Live with Cameron Diaz and Scott Foley as guests.Don't really care about Kimmel, but the guests are cool!!! Unfortunately Ellen is on hiatus and her show is full. Oh well. We also made chocolate covered gummi bears after Aaron Ginsburg tweeted that Steve Damstra made it. I suddenly wanted some too! The first attempt was a disaster, but the second attempt was very successful!



I hiked to the observatory at Griffith Park on Friday. It was an INSANE hike! I didn't expect it to be this bad and I'm not a real fan of walking uphill. The view was gorgeous though. We could see the Hollywood Sign and the city. The city view was foggy. There were a lot of dogs being walked there which was awesome. It did kind of make me miss Gypsy a lot though, but there is no way in hell either she or I would be hiking up there on a regular basis. Another cool part about Griffith is that it's not a manicured park. It's pretty much wild vegetation with a winding, uphill pathway. There are also mountain lions living in that area, but they come out at night when there are no people. It is fun to say I walked where mountain lions walked though :D



Christmas was awesome. We spent the day at home, with a Christmas lunch and then headed out to eat in the evening. We ate at a restaurant in Studio City. We were supposed to go to Hollywood but it looked like it was going to POUR, so we stayed near by. After dinner, we went out of the restaurant to find a dog that had run away from his owner. We kind of held on to him till his panicked owner came running to find him.

I actually teared up a little when I saw dog and owner reunite, because there have been times when Gyp has gotten away from me and I've literally had a heart attack! The dog is a Rottweiler mix called Riley and he is so sweet. The owner, Jasmin, asked us to come down the road, a few buildings away to a new club called P71. Apparently her boyfriend owned it, and I really wanted to experience LA night life so Ella and I went. It was SO much fun, and we stayed there for a couple of hours. It was loungy, with a nice dancing area. The DJ who was spinning that night actually spins for the Roosevelt, so that was pretty cool!

Sunday, the day after the partying, was like a day after partying. I woke up at 8am, went back to sleep at 11, woke up at 2pm, ate a little, hung around, then went back to sleep at 8pm, now waking up at 2am on Monday, blogging! HA!

Today, we plan on hiking to the Hollywood Sign, because it's warm and clear (warm for LA - 20C!). I'm a little scared for NYE, cause the temperature is supposed to drop to a lovely 4C!!!! I have never been in temperatures that cold. The club where we're going should be heated though, otherwise I'll be celebrating Halloween late, by going as an Eskimo!

Will blog more as I explore LA! And if I meet the fancy celebs!!!

PS: I am now not apprehensive about cats! Thank you Bandit Louise!